Adding a SCART input to a console VGA converter

If you’re working with a CGA, EGA, or RGB gaming system this inexpensive board does a great job of converting the signal to VGA so that you can play using a modern display. But what if you have a SCART connector as an output? That’s the situation in which [EverestX] found himself so he hacked in SCART support.

The first step is to source a female SCART connector. He grabbed a coupler off of eBay and cracked it open, yielding two connectors. Now comes the wiring and you may have already noticed that there’s a lot more going on here than the color channels, sync signal, and ground. Technically that’s all you really need to make this happen, but the results will not be good. First off, the sync signal for SCART tends to be rather awful. That’s where the blue breakout board comes into play. [EverestX] used an LM1881 to grab the composite sync (yes, composite sync, not component sync) signal as a feed for the VGA converter. He also added in an audio jack for the sound that is coming through the connector.

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7 thoughts on “Adding a SCART input to a console VGA converter”

maybe i don’t get it, but why ? there are plenty of scart to component (yuv) adapters on ebay for 3-4 €, hell, there are even scart to vga cables in that price range. instead of buying a coupler off of ebay, he could just have gotten the right adapter in the first place. however, the hack itself is cool ;)

The thing is that devices with SCART usually work on low frequencies so it’s not simply a case of converting the signals with a cheap cable since VGA monitors can’t do anything with the signals then, so you suggested solutions only work in some rare cases. And the YUV thing was added late to the SCART specs and many devices do not support it, in which case a cable converter is also pointless

So you are right in some cases, but obviously this is for the cases where you need a more complex device as shown here, only you need it to accept a SCART input, as this hack supplies.